TUBERCULOSIS is rife in Birmingham with as many outbreaks as Third World countries, a shock report has shown.

The findings have prompted city council bosses to call for compulsory inoculations to protect residents from the potentially deadly disease.

Figures from primary care trusts revealed incidents of TB in some inner-city areas of the city were comparable to rates found in Africa and India.

Confirmed TB cases run at almost 500 a year in Birmingham.

The mass vaccination programme for schoolchildren was abandoned in 2005.

Last week, pupils at King Edward VI Sheldon Heath Academy in Birmingham were screened for the disease after an IT teacher contracted TB, which has killed 67 people in the city in the past five years.

Birmingham’s director of public health Dr Jim McManus said: “It seems evident that the numbers of those with TB is increasing in Birmingham, as is the burden of the disease in social and financial terms.”

The Heart of Birmingham Primary Care Trust, which includes Ladywood, Aston, Nechells and Sparkbrook, has reported 99 cases per 100,000 of population – more than double the 40 cases per 100,000 point at which Department of Health advice suggests the disease is running out of control.

In Lozells and East Handsworth, the rate is 140 cases per 100,000 and in Aston it is 145.

The Birmingham North and East PCT, which includes Washwood Heath, Erdington, Yardley and Kingstanding, put the figure at 43 per 100,000. Only in the more prosperous parts of Edgbaston covered by the South of Birmingham PCT were incidents lower, at 27 per 100,000.

Coun Deirdre Alden, who chairs Birmingham City Council’s health scrutiny committee, accused the PCTs of being in denial about the scale of the problem, with treatment costs in Birmingham hitting £1.5 million a year.

The group passed a resolution demanding the reintroduction of universal inoculations.

It said: “This council believes the reintroduction of the universal inoculation is a necessary step to protect the people of Birmingham and to reverse the current rate of increase before the disease gets out of control.”